Between March 31 and tomorrow, I will have had FIVE books release. I love book releases, don’t get me wrong, but that’s an awful lot to keep track of in such a short period of time! Ah well, you make the best of it and you learn how to multi task and in the end, it’s a book release after all!

Vegas II

I’ve got two books out this month, first there’s WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS…AFTER DARK from Harlequin Spice and then RELENTLESS from Berkley Heat. As it happens, both of these are stories that required worldbuilding.

My first book was a paranormal set in New Orleans featuring a matrilineal line of witches. As I continued on through the last five years, I’ve kept to some of the themes I loved back in 2004 when I wrote Triad.

Making up my own rules! I love paranormal or futuristic worlds where I can build my own universe and give it rules. Things run how I want them to. Of course, that means it has to make sense, even if it’s made up. Nothing is more annoying than a paranormal universe with all sorts of rules that contradict each other, or worse, leaves you totally confused. Still, to me that’s the fun part.

In RELENTLESS, I was able to expand the world I introduce in UNDERCOVER. I get to go into more depth about the system of rule, who is Ranked and why. I can dig into the meat of that because it’s very important to both my characters so it’s relevant to relate to the reader. That was fun too, creating a system of governance for this world, giving it heart, giving it flaws.

Family/friendship groups! This is something I use across genres from my contemporary Chase Brothers books to my Cascadia Wolves. I’m of the belief that you get to know a person or a character via his or her relationships with the people they’re closest to. It gives the characters a place to hang up their coat. Are they protective? Do they have a hard outer shell but they go out of their way for their mother or sister? It’s a glimpse into someone’s character.

In RELENTLESS you meet Abbie, who is very close with her siblings and who has a very complicated relationship with her father. And Roman, to whom Family is everything because he’s a single father and the most highly Ranked leader in the Known Universes. He seems remote and aloof, but when you see him with his sons or with his friends, you know he’s much more complicated than it appears at first glance.

And in SENSUAL MAGIC, Nell’s family are the witches in her Clan, she relates to the world via her position in her Clan and her relationship to them as the Hunter. Poor William, he’s rather alone in the world except for his brother, Nell is more than he ever expected.

For me, the joy of each book is when I feel like I’ve truly given readers a glimpse into a character they can root for. Doesn’t mean you won’t want to pop them in the nose sometimes, but in the end, characters and a story who make readers feel something, even for just a few hours.

That’s the joy of it, the joy of it for me as a reader, when I open up and book and get swept away (be it to a werewolf pack or a small town in Georgia). I hope I can do that too, I hope that when readers finish my books they feel their time was well invested and that my characters stay with them.

How about you all? Are characters important to you? Is the story important? Do you have settings or themes you avoid or go right for?

As you read this, I will be in sunny Orlando hanging out with friends and getting ready for the excitement of the 2009 Romantic Times Booklovers Convention! Lucky for me, I’ll be seeing many of my Bradford sisters as well as other author friends and readers I know online but rarely get to see in person.

I’m also running a HUGE contest at my blog for the upcoming release of RELENTLESS:

You can read a list of books I’ll be giving away as well as all the contest rules and details at my blog (just click the “enter” button on the widget right above.

Also coming up, is the May 1 release of What Happens in Vegas…After Dark - the follow up to last year’s Vegas anthology, this time with a paranormal flavor. My story, Sensual Magic, is William’s story, you meet him in Stripped and he’s in for a big surprise when he meets Nell Hunter - a woman who is far beyond ordinary. After Dark is one of the books I’m going to be giving away in my TOTALLY RELENTLESS CONTEST in a daily contest as well as being in the grand prize tote. Anya is also hosting a ginormous contest at her blog so you should check it out!

That’s really about it. I’ll post pictures when I return. You all have a lovely week and if you’re in Orlando or going to RT, please do come by our Love Shack The Sequel reader party on Friday!

I love writing intricate worlds. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy paranormals and futuristics, I can really dig into a world, make it my own. I love just creating it all, making it work, giving it rules. When I write contemporaries, I often like to dig into darker emotions, pasts people work to get over, mostly the threats are external and it’s the couple together against the threat.

Always cover

But sometimes I like to write books that are simple. No car crashes, no one is sick, no stalkers or threat of cheating or the shadow of an ex. Sometimes I like to write about the every day sorts of challenges people face.

Always, a contemporary romance releasing April 14th from Samhain is one of those stories. It’s about a woman who put her life on hold for her fiance in the past and paid for it because things fell apart and she gave up several of her dreams for him and had to start over. Into her life walks a man she had a relationship with some years before while on a summer work visa.

Eamon Blake had been a friend and a fun, sexy fling but Caitlin came back to the US and went on with her life at the end of the summer. She didn’t pine for him, didn’t think he was the great love of her life.

Back into her life, as she’s in her second year of law school, Eamon turns up in her life again, but they’re both different people. They begin their relationship again, long distance from Seattle to LA and back, but as time moves along, Caitlin realizes she’s in love with Eamon but that doesn’t change her need to stay in Washington and fulfill her dreams.

I liked switching the roles a bit, having the man be the one faced with the decision to move away from his house and his life, having him have to decide if it’s worth it to sacrifice, to make the choice to be with a woman on her terms.  So many times in books, it’s the heroine who has to move and give up things. I wanted to write a story where it simply makes sense for him to do it. Not that the choice would be easy, making hard choices never is. But love isn’t enough. The people in a relationship have to decide to be in it, have to decide to take on the burdens as the relationship changes and grows along with the external lives of the people in it.

At it’s heart, Always is a simple love story about the complexity of being in love with someone enough to choose to make hard choices and to make that choice willingly.

I hope you all enjoy Always!

Do you all like a simple story now and again? If so, do you have any recommendations (I love to add new books to my TBR pile!)

Wanna win an ARC? I’ve got my author copies now and if you’d like to win one, I’ll choose a winner from the comments by noon pacific on Thursday the 9th!  All the FYI stuff: This is an electronic book, FYI and while it’s classified as a sensual romance and it’s not as graphic as my erotic romances, the sexual encounters do use all the big sexin words. Winner will be announced here and needs to claim prize no later than seven days after the announcement.

WINNER: Via random.org - commenter #6 Jane. Jane, email me with your format preference and I’ll get the book your way! Congratulations and thanks to everyone for all your recommendations and comments!

If you got through the above silliness – you know a little bit about my upcoming contemporary erotic romance release, Taking Care of Business. One of my favorite things about the book is that I wrote it with my bestie, Megan Hart. We came up with the idea as a way to pass the time while waiting in line for a dinner at the 2007 RT Convention in Houston. The whole process has been a lot of fun and there’s something to be said about every once in a while taking a project that is just about fun - if the opportunity comes up, I highly recommend it!

Megan and I have a lot of goofy fun so writing a book was really just a lot of us talking too much on IM and ripping ourselves off when we needed dialog. I’m sure it’s not always this enjoyable - this time around, I had a huge last minute deadline drop in while we were writing No Reservations and so we had to write around my schedule. Luckily, we know each other pretty well and we share the same basic attitude about work so it didn’t cause any tension. But a lot of the time, it was like, “I think Kate needs to go to a strip club with Dix.” And Megan would ping me back, “WHEEEEE!” Some days, this job is really fun.

I loved writing Katherine because she’s a woman who knows what she wants. She’s focused on her career and she knows the hard way that things in business are different for women than they are for men so she keeps a big wall between her personal life and her work life. I loved that about her character, I loved that she wasn’t a woman who hated sex or who was afraid of love, she just has to figure out if she can let someone from her work life into her personal life.

In her case, her man, Charles Dixon, isn’t having any excuses. But he’s respectful of her space and her independence. He doesn’t think she’s being silly but he wants her and he’s not going to let her walk out of his life until she admits she wants him too. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that in my head, Dix is totally Dr. Christian Troy from Nip/Tuck. Poor Dix, I think Kate sullied him a bit, and left him sweaty and weak kneed.

Anyway, it was a great experience. Two friends writing about two friends. The story is simple and straightforward with two adult women facing a lot of the same things many women face with men who aren’t jerks or too good to be true. I hope if you pick up TCOB you have as fun reading it as we had writing it.

Here’s the book video and below that, the cover and blurb:

Pre-Order from Amazon US -releases March 31, 2009

One conference, two friends, two men who know how to take care of business.

Blurb: After leaving the wrong man, Leah Griffin’s not ready to look for the right one. All she wants is to survive the conference she’s planning and spend some time with her best friend Kate Edwards. She’s not expecting the conference services manager to be so tall, dark and handsome…or so eager to please. It’s Brandon Long’s job to make Leah happy, but after a scorching interlude in her hotel room, neither can deny business has become pleasure.

Smart, driven and successful attorney, Katherine Edwards has spent her life making the right choices. Directly counter to those right choices, she’s involved in a long distance, secret love affair with a co-worker. Charles Dixon is a bad choice she can’t help but make – over and over. A conference and a promotion bring Kate back to Pennsylvania and suddenly, Dix wants far more than a few nights in random hotel rooms. He wants something permanent and Katherine has to figure out if sometimes a wrong choice isn’t exactly what a woman needs.

We had a great time with this project and were lucky enough to also sell the follow up book, NO RESERVATIONS which follows Kate and Dix, Leah and Brandon this time to Las Vegas

I’m in the midst of working on the edits for Coming Undone. It’s due this upcoming Sunday so I’m working through it now. This book, to me as I read through it now, is at its heart about the family you make and who support you in your day to day life. Family isn’t always made up of people you’re biologically related to.

Coming Undone has a child in it and I had a lovely time writing her. Rennie, the daughter, is an amalgam of my three kids so writing dialog was just a matter of perking up my ears to listen to my household. I’ve written babies before, I’ve had secondary characters who had kids, but this is the first time I’ve written a heroine with a child this old - 7 and 8. I wanted her to be a real character in the story, not just a way to say my heroine is nurturing but never on the page. Elise, my heroine, is a single mother, she doesn’t have the freedom to just go out any old time she wants. Her life is intensely focused on her child and her work. She’s driven to build a new future for herself and her child. Brody is a man who raised his siblings, he’s been responsible for someone his entire adult life and he’s fiercely dedicated to his brother and sister. But he is done taking on other people’s stuff. He’s just not expecting Elise at all.

I have a thing about second chance at love stories. I love them. I love to write them. Coming Undone is about second chances, it’s about being good and doing the right thing and yes, it’s about two people falling in love and growing a new family.

And now I need to get back to it! But as it happens, I’ve got a number of new releases coming so to celebrate, how about a contest?

To win a copy of Cascadia Wolves: Standoff (releasing March 31) - tell me what your favorite family oriented book or series of books is. I’ll choose a winner from the replies at noon pacific March 11.

THE WINNER - A’LA Random.org is comment #6 - JOYE! Joye, email me your mailing address and I’ll get the book your way!

My kids are finally back in school today after being out all of last week and getting under my feet like kids are wont to do. I still managed to get my words in every day and today instead of luxuriating in my renewed two hours alone, I’ll be running errands, LOL. Such is the life of a mom.

But I’m back in the swing and moving into the end of Coming Undone. I wrote the big reveal yesterday, even while being interrupted eleventybillion times. So I figure by the middle of next week I’ll be done with the first draft and then I’ll get a second draft, out to crit and then a final off to my editor. Whew.

Got some new covers!

This is for Always, a contemporary romance due out from Samhain on April 14. I just put an excerpt up at my website yesterday, just a short one. Got final line edits done this weekend so it’s ready to roll now.

And Holiday Heat, a print combo featuring Jaci Burton’s Unraveled and my Sweet Charity which comes out September 29.

They’re both quite pretty, aren’t they!

Scuse me, I’ve got to get back to work! I have managed to read some - Patricia Briggs’ Bone Crossed which was, AWESOME. She used just the right amount of subtlety with Mercy as she’s working to overcome her attack. I also read and loved Eileen Wilks’ Mortal Sins (I can’t get enough Lily and Rule) and Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty and The Dead Man’s Hand which is another fabulous installment in the Kitty series. Alas, now that I’m in full on, motoring toward deadline and the end of the book time, I don’t get much non-manuscript reading done. But when I finish, I’ve got some ARCs to read (thank you Ann and Cindy) as well as the stuff still in my TBR pile.

Click to Play

You can read excerpts and advance reviews at my website.

In this erotic universe, passion knows no rank…

Since the first settlers came through the portals from Earth, fifteen Families have held the rule of the Federated Universes in their hands. There’s never been a better time than now to throw out the old and usher in a new order. Give voice to the unranked. Abbie Haws has spent her life battling the system. A fighter, she’s always been too busy and driven to pay much attention to finding love. But when she’s granted audience with Roman Lyons, the head of House Lyons, who stands for everything she hates, her instant attraction catches Abbie off-guard…

It’s common knowledge that the Known Universe revolves around Ravena—and that Ravena revolves around Roman Lyons, bred to lead since birth. Roman dreads his meeting with a defiant—if stunning—rabble-rouser. But, sometimes, headstrong personalities in the conference room make for hot-and-heavy, guilty trysts in private….

Now, Abbie will show Roman the parts of her world he wouldn’t otherwise get to see. And he’ll give her a glimpse of the Families’ age old tradition and unleash a sexuality he’d never given rein to before.

Now On To The Contest Details!!

This is an ARC contest for my upcoming Heat release, Relentless. The intent of an ARC is to get readers and reviewers talking about the book - so essentially what I’m asking people to do is talk about the book - review it at your blog or at your reader group or review site between April and May 5, when the book releases.

The winners just send the link with their review and agree let me quote it at my blog and website (with proper attribution, natch). I don’t require that you like the book although I hope you do!

THE RULES (please read carefully) All you need to do to enter is reply to this post and tell me where you’d be talking about the book if you win (urls are always helpful if you mean your blog!). I’ve got a limited amount of ARCS so I’ll choose winners based on that supply. I also have a limited number of electronic ARCs so if you’d be willing to read and review an electronic ARC, say so in the comments

I’ll announce the winners by Noon March 1 at my main blog and contact winners off list - please include an email so I can notify you and get your mailing address!

Good Luck!!

A few days after my last post here I got my cover for Laid Bare - a contemporary, menage, erotic romance out from Berkley Heat on August 4

Coming August 4 from Berkley Heat

Unexpected Desire…

It’s been ten years since clean-cut, sexy-as-hell police officer Todd Keenan had a white-hot fling with Erin Brown, the provocative, wild rocker chick next door. Their power exchange in the bedroom got under his skin. But love wasn’t in the cards just yet…

Now, life has thrown the pair back together. But picking up where they left off is tough, in light of a painful event from Erin’s past. As Todd struggles to earn her trust, their relationship takes an unexpected and exciting turn when Todd’s best friend, Ben, ends up in their bed—and all three are quite satisfied in this relationship without a name. As the passion they share transforms Erin, will it be enough to help her face the evil she thought she had left behind?

It’s so pretty I squee every time I look at it! Nicely enough, I sold the sequel to Laid Bare just days after getting this cover! I still don’t have a title but I’m hoping to get an agreement on one soon because I’m the kind of dork who has a hard time writing without one. This book will be Brody’s story. Brody is Erin’s older brother, a man who took in his siblings to raise when he was just 19. They’re all successful people now, as is he. He’s spent all of his adult life parenting his siblings and now he’s not looking to be responsible for anythone or anything else! He sure isn’t expecting Elise Sorenson to enter his life.

This one will be out in January of 2010 and I’m currently writing it.

On that topic -

The heroine in the book I’m writing now is a ballet teacher but she used to be a principal dancer in the American Ballet Theatre (although I may have to change the company depending on licensing issues). She’s different from many of my heroines so far, not as outwardly emotional and expressive but in a lot of ways, she emotes through her body when she dances.

As I was thinking about her, about who she’d be in relation to who Brody is (and I wrote him in Laid Bare so I knew him much more as I began to write the proposal). I wanted her not to be his opposite, but with core things very much like his, but outwardly different. Her mode of expression also through art but what or how? And then I thought about ballet and dancing. I love ballet. Like, really, really, really love ballet.

When I was ten, a woman my mother worked with had a son who danced with the Royal Australian Ballet and he came to visit her in Los Angeles and with him, came tickets to a gala at the Terrace Theater in Long Beach for the American Ballet Theatre. This was huge and a moment in my life I’ll never forget (I still have the program tucked into a book Lois - our friend - gave me for my birthday a few days before that.) A gala is often a chance to see bits from the season so it has several acts, each with different styles and it’s wildly exciting for people who love ballet. And even better, it’s a great excuse to get dressed up. We had these amazing seats because of our friend’s son and that night I knew I’d love ballet forever. I wanted to be Cynthia Gregory when I watched her dance the Grand Pas Classique with Fernando Bujones (both of them such amazing, amazing dancers).

That night, I don’t think I can really put into words how it changed my life. I was this kid who watched ballet on PBS. We didn’t hob nob, we couldn’t afford lessons or anything. I’d never seen it live and even later in my life I hadn’t seen anything that could touch it until I was an adult. Something inside me was set free by the beauty I saw that night. By the way the dancers moved and carried themselves. It’s one of the most beautiful things imaginable to see ballet live.

This is the Grand Pas Classique with music by Auber - I looked for Bujones clips because I love how he looks when he dances but the only one I found was of poor quality. This one features Sylvie Guillem, who is one of the finest ballet dancers ever. It’s worth a watch because she doesn’t allow her dancing to be filmed these days.

This is very a very classic, very beautiful piece. Look at the balance required, the timing, the strength and poise. It’s one of my favorite pieces when done by a good company because it’s lovely to look at. It had embedding disabled but the link works. When you watch closer to the end and see her freaking balance during her turns, it’s amazing. She’s flawless, like a thing of magic and air.

That night we saw The River as the closing piece - this is Cynthia Gregory above performing part of the River (with music by Duke Ellington and choreography by Alvin Ailey)

Anyway, I’ve been watching a lot of youtube, thinking about Elise, about what she’d look like, how she’d carry herself and so I thought I’d just share a bit of that, and a bit of me, with you all.

Don’t forget to enter the Taking Care of Business ARC contest at my blog (or megan’s blog)! Have a great week everyone!

Things were sort of quiet as the year closed but man-oh-man did 2009 get started this last week. I finished up two proposals (one of them came from an idea I got right as I was falling asleep so I got up and wrote it down with the keywords and stuff before I forgot!) and copy edits for Laid Bare landed on my doorstep so I’m busy writer-girl right now. But it’s good because I did have that break over the holidays so I feel refreshed and ready to go.

There are several contests currently going on for my books if you’re interested.  Here at Vitch’s Livejournal she’s giving away a copy of Undercover and then at my blog and Megan’s blog we’ve got a contest running to win ARCs of Taking Care of Business (although you only need to enter once at either place). 

I’ve been nominated for some CAPAs and some Love Romances Cafe awards - so thank you to the reviewers! Got some great reviews for Sweet Charity and Undercover (up at my website on the book pages if you’re so inclined).  Um, what else? Watched some good movies, some bad movies, re-watched some old favorite tv shows (Buffy).  Battlestar Galactica comes back at long last on Friday! Yayayayayayyaayaaayyyyaaay!  I am so excited about that (not that you could tell I’m sure, LOL)

Oh and if you’re local to the Seattle area, I’ll be doing some group signings:

The first is February 7 at  4 in the afternoon: 

Barnes & Noble Booksellers

401 NE Northgate Way, Suite 1100

Seattle, WA 98125
There will be goodies to snack on and along with my books, Lacy Danes, TJ Michaels, Shelli Stevens and Pat Pritchard/Alexis Morgan will be signing theirs.

And the next is the following weekend, February 14 at 6:30 pm at:
 

Feb 14th at 6:30pm. 

17171 Bothell Way NE
Lake Forest Park, WA  98155
Phone : 206-366-3316  FAX : 206-366-3338

Authors participating are

Lauren Dane

Lacy Danes

Alexis Morgan

Shelli Stevens

Pat White

So lots of stuff going on. Kids back in school so I’m running everyone all over town, supervising homework and all that jazz. But it’s good to be getting back to my scheduled life after the snow kept us inside for so long and then the floods right down the hill from us. We were spared so I’m grateful for that.

Enjoy your Monday and your week!

A bad boy is about to find out just how naughty a good girl can be.

After eight long years of pretending a horrible one-night stand hadn’t happened and wondering if it had been her fault, Charity Harris has finally coaxed handsome bad boy and lifelong friend, Gabriel Bettencourt, back into her bed. It’s not just good, it’s fanfreakingtastic! Trouble is, he’s persisting with his story about not wanting a relationship and not being good enough for her even as their friendship blooms into something looking a lot like love.

Gabriel has ached to make Charity his for years, and finally having her in his bed, not just enduring but enjoying his darker urges is more than he’d ever imagined it could be. Despite what she says, he knows she deserves candlelight and roses, not candle wax and ropes. He’ll enjoy her while he can and let go when she finds the right man.

Charity knows Gabriel’s game and she’s not having any of it. A man can like it rough in bed and still be good and kind. He’s exactly the kind of man she wants to marry and she will. She loves him and she knows he loves her and she’s not taking no for an answer.

So when he runs off “to think” just after Christmas, it’s up to her to let him know that good girls can like it dark and rough and bad boys can be good men.

My name is Lauren Dane and I love small town romance that feature families. I read across most genres but most often, when I want a comfort read, I pick up a contemporary set in a small town with a family in it. Probably because my own, deepest roots, come from small towns and big families.

So last year when it came time to write a holiday themed novella, I’d just completed my Chase Brothers series and wanted to return to a small town setting so I reached into my own background and decided on Davis, California. For me, holidays mean family and for me, family and holidays often meant small towns where my family lived.

Now, Davis is a town caught between being a university town and a small farming town. It’s both, which is a character I sort of like about it. It’s an interesting melding of influences and so I had a great time writing To Do List there and returning this month to it for Sweet Charity.

Both my parents grew up in small towns in California’s Central Valley (towns WAY smaller than Davis, actually). Both have roots in the earth, in farming and in small communities. I grew up for most of my life in a very large city but we kept our roots and spent lots of time with family back in the valley. If you’ve never thought of farmers as sexy, let me tell you, some of them aren’t, LOL. But men who work the earth, who work with their hands? Yes indeed, very nice bodies. They’re solid and sexy and eminently capable at their very best.

When I think about the best memories of my childhood, I realize I often put them into my books. In Always there’s a scene where Eamon takes Caitlin to Olvera Street. I grew up in Los Angeles and we used to go out to Olvera Street several times a year. But in To Do List and in Sweet Charity, I take part of my growing up, my dad’s Portuguese heritage and I give it to Charity and Gabriel (and Rafe too). The Festas with their courts and parades, with the feasts and all the preparation are a huge part of Charity’s childhood as well as Gabriel’s.

Charity has gone away, gone to college at UCLA but she returned to Davis to run a small business. For her, even though she loved Los Angeles, it wasn’t a real question that she’d come back to where her family and her roots lay. And it’s also where Gabriel Bettencourt is.

Charity and Gabriel have known each other since childhood. She’s close friends with his sister and with his sister in law. She shares his roots on many levels and this is something that holds them together and also keeps their connection alive. They’ve already got the basis for a lifetime of love when the book opens.

This is also why I absolutely love friends to lovers stories! I love that the couple has a strong foundation before the first kiss. I love that usually there’s been some sexual chemistry and tension building up as they deny their attraction and watch the other with other people.

So we end up back in Davis and with Charity who has had enough of Gabriel’s dancing around and sending mixed signals. She means to have him with her and she declares and all out war to get him. Gabriel has, of course, wanted her for a decade and after a disastrous one night stand with her eight years before, has decided he’s not good enough for her because he likes his sex on the dark and rough side.

In Sweet Charity we get glimpses of who each of the characters are not just to each other, but to their family and friends. And this is extremely important to both of them, which heightens their allure to the other.

Of course there’s a Happily Ever After – it’s romance after all and some people are simply meant to be together, no matter how hard they fight it. Charity is a nice girl, as nice as Gabriel thinks she is, but being nice doesn’t mean she can’t be a bit dirty and being a bit dirty doesn’t mean you don’t have a good heart.

I hope folks enjoy Sweet Charity as much as I enjoyed writing it! And yes, I do hope to go back to Davis and revisit some of the characters I’ve introduced in To Do List and Sweet Charity. And I will most definitely be back to small towns and big families again. (or big towns and big families too – I write families into most of my books, LOL)

Now, for the contest part…Elisabeth Naughton has a book coming out (you can read about it just below as a matter of fact). So, I’m going to give a copy away on Wednesday! All you need to do to enter is tell me what your favorite comfort trope is - friends to lovers, vampires, small towns, shieks, greek millionaires, whatever and if you have a particular favorite title you reach for time and again. I’ll choose a winner from the comments and have the book shipped directly to you from Amazon!

Good luck! I’ll pick a winner at noon pacific on Wednesday December 31.

WINNER a’la Random.org is commenter #12! Dana - email me your mailing address so I can get this sent to you via Amazon! Congrats.